


clopen sets

by supersymmetry



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/F, Genderswap, pre-romantic/sexual/otherwise feelings but intrigue and fascination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 14:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1652663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supersymmetry/pseuds/supersymmetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a digression of Newt's thoughts turns into an uncharacteristically reflective analysis on herself and her perplexingly contradictory lab partner. Pre-movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	clopen sets

Newt had never expected to fall into a relationship as unrelentingly antagonistic as the one in which she found herself with Hermann Gottlieb. The relationship being, of course, professional, if not for the the bouts of calling one another a “sentient calculator” or “glorified zoologist.”

It is one dull evening at the Hong Kong shatterdome, July 2021, that Newt pursues indulges in some sort of further consideration of her lab partner’s behavior. It is close to midnight. Hermann continues her work on the computer, modifying her model of the Breach. When they first moved into this shatterdome, she had placed her desk so that she faces away from Newt, as they’ve found it too easy to launch into some new feud when they constantly face each other.

Despite a lack of any new samples or information on the kaiju, Newt remains at her lab bench, a pen in hand, empty notebook page before her. Whenever Hermann works a late night, Newt has the compulsion to stay as well, if nothing else, to prove that she’s just as dedicated. It’s nights like this that she’s glad she chopped her hair short years ago. It now hangs long enough to get in her face at times, when she’s bent over her work. But at least the humidity doesn’t make it into some sort of unmanageable tangle of curls anymore. She taps her pen against her notebook and stares at the back of Hermann’s head. Her hair is pulled back in a tight bun (something Newt had commented upon as being “hysterically stereotypical”), but stray strands fanning out at the edges from the weather.

The Hermann she now knows and works with is different from the woman Newt thought she had written to for so many years. Their correspondences drew her in, enchanted with the idea that there was someone out there thinking as critically about these incredible and surreal events as herself. She found herself giving high praise to a woman she’d never met. And, as a child prodigy, she knew praise was not something to hand out lightly.

Upon meeting, it was one look that set Newt over the edge. That slow, scrutinizing glance up and down at Newt’s tattoos and “unprofessional” attire, along with Newt’s defensiveness and disdain for the traditional professorial look that Hermann seemed so determined to emulate, catalyzed the deterioration of an initially amicable academic correspondence.

Which, Newt believes, is for the best. Their methods and motivations were irreconcilable. _Is there a word for being fascinated by someone’s cognitive power but loathing everything they are outside of that? To admire the success but despise the victory? To enjoy the pride but fume at the condescension? I mean, how different are any of these things, anyway?_

It didn’t matter. Newt had worked too hard to defy the image everyone expected her to have to be critiqued by some tweed suit-wearing woman that was the antithesis of everything Newt was.

But, she admits now that the initial vehement hatred has worn off, replaced by a constant level of irritation and skepticism, Hermann pours her entire being into her work. Newt has never seen her take a vacation day, or a sick day, or any time spent that wasn’t somewhat related to her calculations. Newt suspects that a part of her obscene level of motivation comes from the simple pleasure of being thanked or just acknowledged. And the reception of a reward makes her pursue the action. Perhaps it’s the praise she wants, or perhaps it’s just the self-verification of her capabilities. This is one of the most annoying parts about Hermann, because Newt thinks Hermann should _know by now_ that she _is_ capable and, more than that, brilliant, and shouldn’t need the nod of approval from these old dudes who knew nothing about the sciences and didn’t care about the implications of her discoveries beyond their narrow goals. While Newt denies the effectiveness of Hermann’s field in this situation, she would never deny the effectiveness of Hermann’s intellect.

They are two brilliant minds from opposite ends of a spectrum. 

Hermann, the daughter that worked endlessly for recognition, Newt, the daughter that received too much.

Newt has, of course, recognized this fact long ago. She knows that the fact that she achieved so much in so little time makes her a figure of envy and annoyance, with an inflated ego and sense of self. While this was something that once concerned her, it is now something she knows she cannot change, only accept. Besides, it’s not as though with the end of the world approaching, anyone would think that a self-help book on how to be a bit more empathic or considerate was anyone’s top priority.

Before pursuing her undergraduate, she had read various articles on child prodigies (articles on the “soft sciences” were an indulgence she allowed herself back then). Immediately concerned with the potential state of her life after 18, she set out to disregard every stereotype with a brief list of objectives: a) don’t take failure too seriously, b) don’t doubt yourself, c) have a life.

People in her lab often grew to resent her. Working on her second doctorate, when she was seventeen and her hair was still long, she overheard a lab member hissing to another, “And it’s not just her babbling, God, she just _looks_ like a fucking high schooler. Okay, we get it. She’s brilliant and probably will achieve more before she’s 21 than we will in our entire careers. Does she really have to rub it in with that cutesy, high-ponytail schtick?” The next day, Newt entered the lab, hair buzzed short. She finished that degree the following spring and immediately transferred to a different lab.

Things wouldn’t change for a few years. And people still find her difficult to get along with, but at least now she’s at the age that makes it supposedly acceptable to be this way. A horrifying double-standard, but it’s one that Newt has the decency to take advantage of. She has continued to irk people, but bumping heads with her personality is the smallest price these people should have to pay for her work on saving the world. And when the world is saved, people will still find her just as grating, but maybe it'll be justified enough that they'd learn to enjoy her rather than deal with her. Unlikely, though.

Newt has, of course, recognized this fact long ago.

It is immutable, but she brushes it off and moves on.

Newt takes a glance at her lab partner from across the room. She wonders if Hermann views her relative to mathematical jargon, to make human contact understandable. She wonders if Hermann views Newt as an object relative to Hermann, in a series of if/then statements. If Hermann is a convergent series, Newt is a divergent series. If Newt is an open set, then Hermann is a closed set, and contains all her limits.

Sometimes, math was almost poetic. Sometimes. And almost.

She shakes herself from this indulgent internal monologue, perplexed with this sudden fascination with Hermann’s dedication and thought process. There are few people in the world that capture Newt’s interest. Most of them were rock gods or fictional characters. How incredible that this stuffy, self-righteous, unfashionable mathematician made it onto the list. _But, if this isn’t worth investigating_ , Newt reasons. _Then what is?_

What is it about Hermann that makes her a noteworthy object of interest? Professional curiosity. And a lack of other noteworthy objects around her, Newt supposes. It has been a month since the rest of their staff was cut, dropping their division down to the bare essentials, or what was considered to be the bare essentials by higher-up bureaucrats who knew nothing about the work involved in the analysis of kaiju samples and trans-dimensional topology—

But, that was another rant. Hermann.

She loathes human contact but Newt sees the way she cares about Mako. She claims the personality of Spock but is certainly more McCoy-esque. She can’t carry a normal conversation to save her life but glows when explaining her work.Her hair is pulled neatly back into a bun but her bangs were ruffled. She dresses with a feminine skirt but a bulky tweed men’s jacket. She always frowns at Newt but had incredible laugh lines.

“Newton!”

With the realization that she must have been staring, Newt returns her focus to the non-metaphysical to see Hermann, looking back at her. She holds the frame of her glasses in her hands, fiddling with the left temple—a habit Newt picked up on a few weeks after they met. “Would you please stop whatever it is you’re doing and get back to whatever it is you are supposed to be doing?” she asks, voice indicating irritation but shaking with some fluster.

“You…” Newt points an accusatory finger at her. “Are a closed set of contradictions.”

“What does that even _mean?”_ Hermann sighs. “You really should focus on your own field instead of trying to learn basic analysis and throw it into some meaningless—”

“Have you ever thought about how every facet of your being,” Newt continues over her. “completely opposes another? You know, I used to think that you’re like Spock, but you’re definitely a McCoy. No doubt in my mind. And hey—if I'm an open set, and you're a closed set, does that make K-Science a  _clopen_ set?"

Hermann scoffs, “What is this...some bizarre, pseudo-psychological analysis?” She smirks.

“Well, I _am_ a cryptozoologist,” Newt responds without missing a beat. She grins back. It’s so easy to slip back into old routines, where they’ve dug comfortable grooves to settle in any time there is a shift in their relationships. “So, I’d say trying to figure out what makes you tick is right up my alley.”

Hermann rolls her eyes. However, it's in the way that Newt recognizes as amusement more than feeling genuinely antagonized. "But," she sighs, "To answer your question, no. The union of an open and closed set is...neither. Nothing." She turns her back to Newt once more, clearly disinterested in following this conversation into yet another argument, involving rekindling old insults and points of contention. Which is just as well, since Newt isn’t sure what or how much she might say if allowed to continue.

**Author's Note:**

> If there's one thing that makes me more emotional than K-Science bros it's K-Science LADIES. Thanks for tuning in; I haven't written anything in years, hoping to keep myself motivated to do it more often, though hopefully something a bit less pretentious and self-indulgent. Also, I like keeping Newt and Hermann's names the same for their genderswapped selves, largely because it's easier to remember, but also I feel like it helps to keep their essence as people the same.
> 
> (Also, forgive me if my analysis is rusty, but I'm pretty sure the union of an open and closed set would be neither open nor closed..."Clopen" sets are a real thing, though! Math is cool.)


End file.
